The invention relates to a bearing arrangement having at least two parts rotatable relative to one another.
Such bearing arrangements are used for example in mechanical engineering and are employed wherever two component parts are to be supported one upon the other in such a manner that they are rotatable relative to one another. A typical example is the support of a shaft in a bearing race.
When the bearing race is formed in one piece and closed, the shaft can only be inserted into the bearing race from one end when the arrangement is assembled. This means that the assembly of the bearing arrangement requires more free space in the direction of the axis of rotation than is actually needed once the assembly of the bearing arrangement has been completed. This is frequently a drawback in situations in which the bearing arrangement has to be assembled within a narrow space.
It has been known to divide the bearing race into two half races, so that the shaft may first be laid into one of the half races and the bearing arrangement may then be completed by mounting the second half race and connecting the two half races to one another. In this case it is not possible, however, to connect the two rotatable parts end-to-end. The one of the two parts that serves as bearing race must always have a significantly larger diameter than the shaft-like part. In this case, additional free space is therefore needed in the direction radial to the axis of rotation.